One In 10 Recognise A Bargain

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30976, 4 February 1966, Page 2

One In 10 Recognise A Bargain

To test consumer reactions, the staff at a supermarket put packets of tea in two rows on a shelf and sat back to watch. By the end of the day one row had gone; the other stood almost untouched. Yet they were both of the same quality and the same price, writes Stella Bruce from London.

The only difference was that one packet was brown, the other red. “Yes, red always sells well at waist height.” murmured the man-

ager. "They just can’t resist it poor dears.” “The poor dears” are, of course, you and I—the people who are currently spending well over half our housekeeping allowances in these glittering pataces of temptation, the supermarkets.

We go in, list in hand, resolution firmly in place, but it is no good. Swiftly we are mesmerised by the serried ranks of sauce bottles, the enormity of the bargain box breakfast foods, the juiciness of neon-lit steaks.

The result is that we come out with an average load of 23 items, seven of which we will be hard pressed to find a use for. “Halo Effect’'

It is a sad commentary on out housewifery when a grocer can raise a shelf of goods by 18 inches, and know that he’s going to clear it by the end of the day. But he does, and can, and we should be ashamed of ourselves.

Much of tins degrading information comes from a re-cently-completed series of surveys both in Europe and America, which probed the vulnerability of housewives to psychological selling techniques.

From the results it looks as though an enterprising greengrocer could sell a housewife a ririnocerous—so

long as it was packaged in a nice-looking box with a Tittle cellophane window. Many shops and stores are

now consulting industrial psychiatrists in search of what is known in the trade as the “halo effect.” This, basically, is making the customer feel “at home.”

One such consultant told me, slightly shamefacedly: “Tests have proved that the most important weapon any shop possesses is courtesy and friendliness.

“These will improve business more than any drastic increase in the quality of goods.”

Apparently, once we get into the habit of calling the butcher “my butcher,” he is well on the road to a fortune. He becomes a father figure, our link with the mysteries of aitch-bones, wingrib and middle neck and scrag.

By now he can off-load all manner of dubious meats under the guise of “bargains,” and we accept them without a murmur. Or at least this is the premise the experts wwt on.

Grocery Glamour

The appearance of the shops we frequent is—subconsciously at any rate—as equally important as the goods they sell. Researchers quote the progress of an American grocer, George Washington Jenkins, as a classic example. A few years ago,' he decided that housewives yearned for glamour and excitement with their shopping.

He landscaped his car park with palms and plants. His store became the Taj Mahal of the grocery trade. Spotlights dramatised groceries and vegetables, gold plate and marble abounded. Meat counters looked like jewellers’ windows. Now he has 98 stores. Survey teams have used closed-circuit television to watch the progress of shoppers, noting what holds their attention, what goods they automatically reach for.

From all this observation has emerged a picture of the typical woman shopper. She has two children and brings them in the shops at least half the time.

She has a shopping list but it is very sketchy and so she is a push-over for items which catch her eye.

Glowing Meat

Take baked beans for instance. Few women put them on the list, so the shops place them temptingly where they catch the eye. But spaghetti will be relegated to the bottom shelf, on the theory that anyone who really wants it will be prepared to search for it.

Our shopper will take about 30 minutes to do her main buying, spending at least half the time at the meat and vegetable counters. The lighting of meat is very important. Sales go up in relation to brightness. Meat sells best in a red glow, but shoppers must not be al-

lowed to actually see the lighting. A meat counter should be at the front of the store. Meals are built round meat, and once this is chosen, the rest of the shopping is done briskly. A typical shopper changes brands often, and for no logical reason. She likes to buy packets which have recipes on them.

She is an “eye level to waist level” shopper, preferring to buy from full rather than partially full shelves, although there are exceptions—tea for instance. Only one in 10 of all wives interviewed said they ever looked round several shops to compare prices before buying an article. Arithmetic is generally terrible too—very few shoppers actually work out just what will be saved by • buying that “bargain pack.” Price Differences Except for those items she uses constantly, the shopper cannot remember prices from day to day. And all this information carefully noted by shops and stores, is being used to persuade us to buy more things, and spend more money.

So next time you send your husband out with a shopping list and he returns with an extra and unwanted red packet of tea and a bundle of spaghetti, try .to be patient Just remember he does not understand the psychology of shopping.